"As far as Luckman goes," Doctor Philipson said, "I'd guess that he was killed either directly or indirectly by Titanians, but not for the reason you think. True, he had just come out to California after sewing up the East Coast thoroughly. True, he probably would have assumed economic domination of California as he did with New York. But that was not why the Titanians killed him. It was because they had been trying to get to him probably for months, possibly even years; when Luckman left the sanctuary of his organization and came out to Carmel where he had no pre-cogs, no human Psi-people to protect him—"

"Why'd they kill him?" Sharp asked quietly.

"Because of his luck," the Doctor replied. "His fertility. His ability to have children. That's what menaces the Titanians. Not his success at The Games; they don't give a god damn about that."

"I see," Sharp said.

"And any other human who has luck stands to be wiped out, if the war party has its way. Now listen. Some humans know this or suspect this. There's an organization, based on the prolific McClains of California; perhaps you've heard of them, Patricia and Alien McClain. They have three children. Therefore their lives are acutely in danger. Pete Garden has demonstrated the ability to be fertile and that puts him and his pregnant wife also in automatic jeopardy, and I so warned him. And I warned him that he was facing a situation about which he could do little. I firmly believe that. And—" Doctor's Philipson's voice was steady. "I think the organization formed around the McClains is futile if not dangerous. It has probably already been penetrated by the Titanian authority, here, which is quite effective at that sort of business. Their telepathic faculty works to their advantage; it's almost impossible to keep anything—such as the existence of a secret, militant, patriotic organization—secret from them for long."

Schilling said, "Are you in touch with the moderates? Through your vug patients, here?"

Hesitating, Doctor Philipson said, "To some extent. In the most general way I've discussed the situation with them; it's come up during therapy."

Schilling said to Laird Sharp, "I think we've found out what we came for. We know where Pete is, who kidnapped him and killed Hawthorne. The McClain organization, whatever it's called. Wherever it is."

With an expression of keen wariness, Laird Sharp said, "Doctor, your explanation is extremely interesting. There's another interesting matter, however, that has not as yet been raised."

"Oh?" Doctor Philipson said.

Sharp said, "Pete Garden thought you were a vug."

"I realize that," Doctor Philipson said. "To some extent I can explain that. On an unconscious intuitive level, Garden perceived the dangerous situation. His perceptions, however, were disordered, a mixture of involuntary telepathy and projection, his own anxiety plus—"

"Are you a vug?" Laird Sharp asked.

"Of course not," Doctor Philipson said brusquely.

To the Rushmore Effect of the car in which they were seated, Laird Sharp said, "Is Doctor Philipson a vug?"

"Doctor Philipson is a vug," the auto-auto mech replied. "That is correct."

And it was Doctor Philipson's own car.

"Doctor," Joe Schilling said, "do you have any reaction to that?" He held his gun, an ancient but efficient .32 revolver, pointed at Doctor Philipson. "I'd like your comment, please."

"Obviously it's a false statement by the circuit," Doctor Philipson said. "But I admit there is more I haven't told you. The organization of Psi-persons around the McClains, I'm part of that."

"You're a Psi?" Schilling said.

"Correct," Doctor Philipson said, nodding. "And the girl with Pete Garden last night is also a member, Mary Anne McClain. She and I conferred briefly as to policy regarding Garden. It was she who arranged for me to see Garden; at such a late hour at night I normally—"

"What is your Psionic talent?" Sharp said, breaking in. Now he also held a gun pointed at the doctor; it was a small .22 pistol.

Doctor Philipson glanced at him and then at Joseph Schilling. He said, "An unusual one. It will surprise you when I tell you. Basically it's related to Mary Anne's, a form of psycho-kinesis. But it is rather specialized, compared with hers. I form one end of a two-way underground system between Terra and Titan. Titanians come here, and on occasion, certain Terrans are transmitted to Titan. This procedure is an improvement on the standard spacecraft method because there is no time lapse." He smiled at Joe Schilling and Laird Sharp. "May I show you?" He leaned forward.

"My god," Sharp said. "Kill him."

"Do you see?" Doctor Philipson's voice came to them but they could not make him out; an extinguishing curtain had blotted the fixed images of the objects around them, had blotted them into waste. Junk, like a billion golf balls, cascaded brightly, replacing the familiar reality of substantial forms. It was, Joe Schilling thought, like a fundamental breakdown of the act of perception itself. In spite of himself, his determination, he felt fear.

"I'll shoot him," Laird Sharp's voice came, and then the racket of a gun fired several times in quick succession. "Did I get him? Joe, did I—" Sharp's voice faded. Now there was only silence.

Joe Schilling said, "I'm scared, Sharp. What is this?" He did not understand and he reached out, groping in the stream of atom-like sub-particles that surged everywhere. Is this the understructure of the universe itself? he wondered. The world outside of space and time, beyond the modes of cognition?

He saw now a great plain, on which vugs, unmoving, rested at fixed spaces. Or was it that they moved incredibly slowly? There was an anguish to their situation; the vugs strained, but the category of time did not move and the vugs remained where they were. Is it forever? Joe Schilling wondered. There were many of the vugs; he could not see the termination of the horizontal surface, could not even imagine it.

This is Titan, a voice said inside his head.

Weightless, Joe Schilling drifted down, wanting desperately to stabilize himself but not knowing how. Dammit, he thought, this is all wrong; I shouldn't be here doing this. "Help," he said aloud. "Get me out of this. Are you there some place, Laird Sharp? What's happening to us?"

No one answered.

More rapidly now he fell. Nothing stopped him in the usual sense and yet all at once he was there; he experienced it.

Around him formed the hollowness of a chamber, a vast enclosure of some nebulous sort, and across from him, facing him across a table, were vugs. He counted twenty of them and then gave up; the vugs were everywhere in front of him, silent and motionless but somehow doing something. They were ceaselessly busy and at first he could not imagine what they were doing. And then, all at once, he understood.

Play, the vugs thought-propagated.

The board was so enormous that it petrified him. Its sides, its two ends, faded, disappeared into the understructure of the reality in which he sat. And yet, directly before him, he made out cards, clear-cut and separable. The vugs waited; he was supposed to draw a card.

It was his turn.

Thank god, Joe Schilling said to himself, that I'm able to play, that I know how. It would not matter to them if I didn't; this Game has been going on too long for that to matter. How long? Not knowing. Perhaps the vugs themselves did not know. Or remember.

The card he drew read twelve.

And now, he thought, the sequence which is the heart of The Game. The moment in which I bluff or do not bluff, in which I advance my piece either twelve or null-twelve. But they can read my thoughts, he realized. How can I play The Game with them, then? It's not fair!

And yet he had to play anyhow.

That's the situation we're in, he said to himself. And we can't extricate ourselves, any of us. And even great Game-